Human Rituals
Metamorphosis
(3 Years, 5 Months, Same Day Since Arrival)
“W-well, not really a pony, no,” Twilight said, pulling away. “More like a newer, different you.”
“Be plain with me Princess,” I said, holding her shoulders.
“I-it’s like… it’s like transmutation,” Twilight said, reaching for a slip of paper from the massive file. She turned it over, then lit her horn. It hovered and then folded, folded, folded into a crane shape and fluttered its wings. “T-the only thing is, I dunno what’ll happen when you turn completely.”
“Like… my body might reject something?”
“Well, you come from a world that is devoid of magic. Now you’ve been in a world full of magic, eating magic-infused food and so on for over three years,” Twilight went to the chalkboard to make a little chart. “Things like skin cells, blood cells and so on get replaced over time right? They die and the body replaces them. Well, for the past three years you’ve been using magical materials instead of mundane.”
“So I’m not so much a magic sponge as I am a repair job,” I said, sitting on my legs next to her.
“But there’s also this problem,” Twilight continued her sketching to include bones and a lumpy thing I was pretty sure was supposed to be my brain. “Brain cells and bones don’t get replaced very often, if at all. So what happens if your transformation stops at ninety-five percent and the other five percent starts to reject what you’ve got. It would be like fighting yourself.”
“Sounds like Lupus,” I mumbled worriedly. (Then I had to explain was Lupus was.) “But I feel fine. It’s been three years, right? I don’t feel any different. How far along are we?”
“According to my math…?” Twilight paused for a long time to run some mental numbers. “Maybe eighty, eighty-five percent.” She pulled me into another worried hug. “I don’t want Equestria to kill you, Peaches!” I slowly wrapped my arms about her, careful of her wings. “What if your brain hemorrhages or your joints swell up and reject your bones or you start bleeding for no reason or-!”
I gently shushed her. “Eighty percent in three-and-a-half years, I won’t be sent home in time to avoid a hundred percent.” A hurt look came across Twilight’s face, but she nodded slowly and looked away. “Twilight?” I said, leaning to catch her gaze again. “What’s that look for?”
“I… erm…” Her cheeks were red and her ears splayed a bit. “W-well we can’t lock you in a lead room for a year and a half. You’d go insane.” She huffed, turning and looking upward to stay any tears. A knock on the massive double doors of Castle Friendship. “I’ll get it!” Twilight spluttered, quickly getting up and galloping away.
I studied myself in a standing mirror, looking around the lab. Removing my shirt to take a closer look… I really didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Checking over my shoulder, I made a fist and held it over a stack of Twilight’s papers. Pressing my knuckles to them, I lifted. Nothing. Everything stayed where it was. Refusing to believe this was a power-of-the-heart, heart-of-the-cards nonsense, I tried again a few times. Nothing. “Hrm…” I grumbled. I stared at my palms for a bit, but then I heard hoof-steps.
“Mister Hyooman,” it was none other than Princess Luna! I gave a quick, low bow of surprise. “Or is it Peaches now, as I’ve heard?” she smiled. I grasped her ankle in a friendly shake instead of pulling her ears. We still laughed about our first encounter, so long ago.
“I asked Princess Luna to come and help examine you. She helped pioneer some magics and medicines during Equestria’s opening eras,” Twilight said.
“Some unusual things happened when all three tribes started living and breeding together, it’s true. Medicine and alchemy grew in leaps and bounds on the grounds of fertility and healthy foals alone.” Luna said rather clinically, placing a hoof on my chest. “But if what Twilight’s letters said are true, you may be a somewhat unique case…”
“I don’t see griffins and donkeys gaining traces of pony powers just being around them, and Twilight said it had nothing to do with Applejack, so…” I trailed off.
“What about Applejack?” Luna wanted to know.
“Er, nevermind it,” I said quickly.
“I’ve been running the numbers. His bones have moved ever so slightly and his magical make-up has gone from zero to eighty percent in the past three and a half years,” Twilight led the dark alicorn over to her charts and drawings.
“Not unusual, given he’s imbibed our food and drink for so long,” Luna touched hoof to chin, hrmmm-ing over all Twilight had gathered. “But core materials don’t change regardless of point of origin.”
“Still standing here!” I said aloud as they conferred back and forth without me.
“You know how cells work, yes?” Luna looked over her shoulder at me. “You eat food, the body replaces old or dead cells with new ones. But you come here, you eat magic food and breathe ambient magic—“
“I get magic cells,” I pondered. “So why not gain dragon abilities, or griffon feathers?”
“Nature hates a vacuum. Perhaps you living among ponies has given you pony properties, as you’re absorbing their ambient magic and eating their food.” Luna said after conferring with Twilight for a time. She flipped a few pages to study the notes.
“So I’m not actually turning into a pony, am I?” I said, worried.
“No, of course not,” Luna said with a smirk. “A powerful metamorphosis like that would be catastrophic to your bones, your brain and your everything else without the aid of a powerful source of magic. Even if Twilight invented a spell to aid in such a thing, it would only last a few moments.”
“So, then…?”
“Twilight’s magic sponge theory is not far from the truth, it seems,” Luna gestured to the ‘evolution drawing’ Twilight had made. “Minus the physical, of course,” she reached and tore off all the in-between drawings to leave just the human on the far left of the chain.
“So what do you think, Princess?” Twilight asked softly, her pupils big and soft.
“I think your sponge is being dipped not in water, but in grape juice,” Luna said with a sense of finality. “Peaches will inherit certain pony traits, but his body is absolutely fine. If he isn’t in tremendous pain by now at the eighty percent saturation mark, then he’s not going to be by one hundred percent. Even in more permanent places like his bones and brain, if it’s not bad by now, it shan’t be.” Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, leaning on a desk.
“Well here’s hoping I don’t grow a tail,” I put in, still trying to be a part of this conversation.
“Of course not!” Luna laughed. “Just do not panic if things start sticking to your fists now and then, or your breeding urges explode come spring-time.”
“Breeding urges…?” I wondered at the ceiling, trying not to think about it.
“You said you were theorizing about him having earth pony traits?” Luna wanted to know. She and Twilight pawed through dozens of papers, comparing charts and sharing the kenetic spike I’d produced on the chart just yesterday. She held up the chart with her magic. “A foal’s grip, yes, I see what you mean,” she looked at the numbers for a bit. “Tiz my opinion, Twilight Sparkle, your beau will be fine. A bit different than before, but fine, in the long run.”
“Beau?” I looked up curiously.
“Er, friend!” Luna quickly correctly. Twilight went hot in the face, whapping Luna’s shoulder. “I meant not to imply, hahaha!” she scratched at the back of her head. “Ah, I must refresh and return to Canterlot, if you both feel better now?” She’d only been there about two hours, but she did have a country to run so we understood.
When Luna was gone to the nearest restroom, Twilight was busying herself straightening papers and such, purposefully not looking at me. I sat on her desk so she couldn’t do anything else. She paused, hooves shaking a bit. “Somethin’ you wanna tell me, Twi?” I asked gently.
“I-I thought you were gonna die,” Twilight mumbled. “Th-this is what happens when you make assumptions in science, y’know? I didn’t listen, I was too busy thinking you’d be… uhm…” she trailed off and I gently pulled her into my lap. She rested her head, mentally exhausted, on me. The wetness of tears toughed my naked shoulder. I listened to her breathing for a long time, and her wings folded around me.
“I’m here,” I said softly. “You’re fine, we’re fine. Just breathe.”
“Yeah… yeah…” I could feel her muscles relax a bit and she heaved a great, tired sigh. “You’ve been here a long time, I just… you’re not my pet or my roommate, y’know?” she whispered in my ear, not daring to look at me. “You’re Peaches. M-my Peaches.” She husked quietly.
About a year’s worth of different conversations came crashing down on me, and the obliviousness fell away. “Oh. Ohhhhh…” was all I could think to say.
“S-sorry,” Twilight said, sitting upright and putting her hooves on my chest.
“Don’t apologize,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “It’s cute.” There was a long silence, neither of us could really think what to say now that THIS was out in the open. No wonder she’d been working so very, very hard to save me.
“…what do we do now?” Twilight said, clambering down awkwardly. “I mean, things ended badly for you and Applejack. I mean if we ever… I mean if you’re even interested…”
“Applejack broke up with me because I knocked Big Mac out with a well bucket,” I said flatly, lifting a finger. “But keep that to yourself. It was a cheap shot.”
“What? Why?” Twilight gaped.
“He wouldn’t stop bucking me in the chest and knocking me down for ‘sneaking up on him’,” I made air quotes. “I got tired of it and we… ah…”
“Fought like two colts in the dirt?” Twilight said, looking at me sideways in disapproval.
“Remember that day I came home with a split lip and told you I’d fallen off a ladder? Well, Big Mac’s half my size like any other stallion, but eh…”
“Applejack was closer to her family than you,” Twilight understood.
“Well yes, but let’s NOT talk about my ex when we’re pondering you and me, yeah?” I said. I reached over with a fist, and the papers flicked at me. “I mean this is interesting stuff, maybe we can work together on it a bit more, in case anyone else gets hauled in from other dimensions.” It took me a split second to realize what I’d just done, for Twilight was staring at me. The paper hovered maybe an inch or two away from my outstretched fist. I uncurled my hand so my fingers could grasp it. “Huh, well lookit that.” I said, smiling lopsidedly. She giggled a little.